Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Obsession with clocks..........

Ok I've resisted asking you all this for too long now.
My first DS (now 3.5) was obsessed with clocks at 1. Now my DS 18 months has been obsessed with clocks for months and it's continuing, with a new addition, obsession with circles, but clocks are still #1.
Anyone else see this in the children?
My DS 18 m.o. appears to be developing typically as far as we can tell. No signs of ASD.
The strangest thing is that we don't even have an analog clock up in the house, he picks them out in books, stores, etc.

Hi GGG, i have found in my self (a 7th grade gifted child) That i do have certain obsessions/"connections" to shapes or objects. Me personally i have a strong connection to triangles, i tend to doodle through out the day and they always show up. I draw them in patterns, Illuminati pyramids and what not , but my favorite thing to draw is Sierpinski's triangle which is essentially a triangle made of triangles made of triangles that repeats as long as you can draw it but theoretically it would go on for infinity. sorry for the tangent, But i think from my knowledge it is completely "normal" (which really there is no normal but that's a whole new post) since some kids are obsessed with their pacifiers. Best wishes

Ps. what do you mean by DS

"DS" and "DD" mean "Dear Son" or "Dear Daughter", it's just shorthand for writing posts in forums. If you just said, "S" or "D", it's too easy for the reader to think those could be something else, so adding the "Dear" to it clarifies.
Thank you for your perspective.

Oh yes! DS went through a serious clock phase around 21 months. Every time he saw a digital clock he'd ask what time it was. Within a week or two he could name every number up to 100. This obsession also included timers. He'd set them on the oven and microwave and watch them count down.

At 4 he's still pretty interested in time, but I wouldn't call it an obsession anymore. Timers often go off in our house that I never knew were set. The oven timer goes up to 23 hours and 59 minutes, so sometimes it goes off in the middle of the night or when we're away from the house. He never really went through the same thing with analog clocks, but at some point during his three year old year he learned how to read them. And he's also fairly good with elapsed time. The other day DH ordered a pizza & announced that it would be ready in 30 minutes. DS looked at the clock (4:46), thought for a moment, and said it would be ready at 5:16.

That's all "normal", right?



ETA: Ok, now I'm remembering a short analog clock interest before the digital clock obsession. It think it was mostly about the numbers though. I remember him telling me that "X is 10" at my MIL's house. Finally I realized that her analog clock was in Roman numerals.

DD 2 3/4 was from several months to maybe 15 months old extremely fascinated with lights. Pointing to and saying "light" to every light she would see. She would point and name other things too, but with lights it was every single one at times. She has at times been similarly obsessed with fans, gears, bees, birds, the moon, stop signs, analog clocks, and other things, but not to the extent of man made lights.

She still gets stuck on things. She loves books of all types, but she is a Jake and the Neverland Pirates devotee, and has been for well over a year. We have a very large collection of that series. She has often become obsessed with various songs. She definitely will get ideas stuck in her head and her whole world revolves around those ideas sometimes for months or longer.

Now, another one that she is on is asking questions for reasons other than wanting to know the answer. She will ask rhetorical questions, test mommy and daddy questions, questions about the possible futures even though she knows our planned actions.

I started a thread Share Your Preschooler's Passions because one of my son's passions at that age was clocks (and dials of all sorts). You may want to read some of the responses.

DS is now in second grade and has moved out of his dial fanaticism, but is getting math questions (he's in fourth grade math) about time to the minute. He knew this in Kindergarten! He's soooo over it!

He broke MANY clocks when he was 3-4. They were like a teddy bear for him. He'd fall asleep with one in his hand. One of his first words was, "Ca" as he pointed to the clock in his room and nodded his head.

So, yes. A love of clocks is noted here!

How did I miss this post? My DS5 has been fascinated by clocks since he was 3 and half. His preschool teacher was amazed that he could read the analog clock to the minutes. His fascination is with all measuring instruments with a dial. We went through speedometer, tachometer, scale, thermometer, barometer, etc, and bought countless timepieces. We started making clocks buying clock movements and parts off the internet. I would like to think he is not as obsessed now, but I am sure he'll still want to buy more clocks when he sees the right ones.

My son said the word "clock" before "mama." Now I don't feel as bad.

Me, too.

One of the funniest things about DDs first grade parent-teacher conference was the teacher's report that DD was slightly anxious about time and the class schedule- apparently, she would sometimes interrupt with "Ms.X, Ms,X! It's 10:47 and we are supposed to be doing language arts now!" When we related this to her (now age 14), she responded with "wow, I was an annoying little kid!"

This just made me laugh! I sometimes think, "Someday, little man, you will look back and wonder how your mom and dad coped."